


Secrets left untold

by iftheycare (RedMushroom)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Daddy Issues, Discrimination, M/M, Magic, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Not Beta Read, Self-Hatred, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 11:14:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12863316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedMushroom/pseuds/iftheycare
Summary: Only people with magic - or linked to it - have a soulmate mark.Or:Arthur meets Merlin when they're kids, hates him from the first moment and then ends up sleeping with him when they're much older. Problem is Arthur doesn't want to engage with the soulmate and destiny bullshit - and neither does Merlin.





	Secrets left untold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mrs_Bored](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mrs_Bored/gifts).



> I'm posting this story for @Mrs_bored because she left me this prompt a long time ago and I owe her more than just one fic.  
> It's my first attempt to a long fic (won't be that long, anyway) in English: please be clement. Also: my grammar isn't that great and I'm not a native speaker so - _please_ \- feel free to make all the correction you want (they can only help me to get better!).
> 
> Thanks for reading!

_Prologue_

As a kid, Arthur had always been smart. Morgana disagreed – his sister disagreed with everything concerning his brother – but, according to father, she was smart, too.

For this, Uther had told him and Morgana everything about magic since he could remember. Magic was wrong and dangerous, and only those linked to it had a soulmate. The despise Uther used to put in that word rang a bell even when Arthur had been only six years old. Then again, Magic was a thing for books and tales and old times.

(Arthur had always thought that magic couldn’t have been much trouble anyway, since no one was magic those days. They taught that in history class. All of them knew magic would die, eventually, as dragons and chimaeras did.)

Uther told Arthur how a soulmate could enchant your mind and deceive your thoughts, how it used to ruin lives, as it was a curse to every heart. Nothing real – or healthy – could be found in that bound. People had died because of it.

Morgana didn’t believe him. She thought that soulmates were rare and romantic. Of course, she was a girl.

However, the Pendragons had nothing to fear, for no mark had ever appeared in their family. Until Arthur woke up one morning with a name on his chest, placed at the level of his heart. The mark was neat and clear as he observed it, and the skin felt like a scar under his fingers.

( _His name was Merlin_.)

He was a smart kid, so he understood. Father was _disgusted_. And then, Arthur started to lie.


End file.
